Back Then and Back There
by Tajjas
Summary: Sometimes catching the bad guy isn't enough, and after one such case Mick ends up learning more about Prophet's past.
1. Bad Memories

_Sometimes catching the bad guy isn't enough, and after one such case Mick ends up learning more about Prophet's past._

 _Prophet and Mick are one of my favorite best friend pairs to write, and since there are lots(ish, given this was a one season show) of stories out there with background for Mick I'm sticking to torturing Prophet for now. I do have my own version of the early part of Mick's life in my head, but for now this is my take on why Prophet hates pedophiles so much. Probably a two-shot since I've got way too many other stories to update, but who knows. For the record, I should probably stop binge-watching seasons of Criminal Minds on Netflix. And occasionally trying to figure out how it would have played out with the CM:SB team since we didn't get so much of them._

 _Takes place sometime after the end of the series, and there's no need to read any of my other stories first, although this does fit in with them._

* * *

Mick stared at the door in front of him. Prophet's car was here, and Prophet wouldn't have wanted to be around people which meant that he should be here as well, but for once Mick had no idea if Prophet would open the door for him. Or what he would say if Prophet did.

It wasn't like he had to guess what had set Prophet off. Their last case…the sight of those little bodies being carried out of the park-turned-dumpsite under tarps far too large for them had been rough on everyone, and as much as Mick hated to admit it he was glad that Coop and Beth had handled the coroner visits. This particular unsub had targeted preteen boys and it had been bad even in comparison to most of their other cases. But they—Prophet included—were professionals and they'd locked it down and done their jobs and that sick bastard wasn't going to be seeing the light of day again anytime _ever_.

Afterwards, though, when they'd foregone another night in the hotel in favor of an empty room at the little regional airport and a flight out as soon as the jet could arrive, Mick had been expecting an explosion. And honestly, as much as he hated seeing his usually gentle-natured best friend turn into something very different, he'd almost been looking forward to it. At least for a few minutes he'd have something to focus on besides his own sick feeling of inadequacy. If they'd found the monster just a _day_ sooner….

He cut off the thought of little Timothy Mitchell, age ten, whose death the coroner's report had placed at less than twelve hours before they'd smashed through the doors of the warehouse, with an unvoiced curse and forced himself to unclench his hands. They'd done the best they could, even if it didn't feel like enough. Would probably never feel like enough.

After a few slow breaths he focused on the door in front of him again because despite what he'd expected, there hadn't been any explosion. Oh, Beth had paced and sworn and kicked a few plastic chairs before throwing herself into one and picking a fight with Coop over some obscure point of whatever that no one else could even follow, Coop had snapped two pencils and torn through one of his small notebooks trying to draw his way through the darkness prior to Beth's interruption, and Gina had sat alone in the corner with her arms locked around her knees and pretended that there were no tears. But Prophet? Nothing. He'd taken a seat with his bag beside him, and said absolutely nothing. Done absolutely nothing. If it hadn't been for eyes locked on the blank wall across the room from him, Mick would have thought that he'd fallen asleep.

Even worse, on the plane back when Gina had taken the seat next to him he hadn't spoken to her. Hadn't so much as looked at her. It wasn't something they ever talked about, but Mick knew damn well that Prophet considered both him and Gina something along the lines of younger siblings and would never deliberately do anything to hurt either of them. Ignoring her like that, no offer of a smile—pain and all—or an arm around her shoulders or _anything_ , just wasn't Prophet.

Prophet had continued his silence after the plane had landed, too, not even speaking to Coop when Coop had finally noticed that something was wrong. He'd just grabbed his bag, slipped around the group with the ease of someone who'd long ago learned to be invisible, and taken off. Gina had only been able to shrug when Coop had looked at her, Beth's expression couldn't have said 'You're asking _me_?' any more clearly if she'd said it out loud, even Mick hadn't had an answer.

 _"Will he talk to you?"_

Any other day Mick wouldn't have had to think about Coop's question. Of course Prophet would talk to him, Prophet always talked to him. Well, usually. And on the rare occasions he didn't it was only after a pretty clear warning for Mick to back off. He didn't just start ignoring people, especially after something this bad.

That was the part that really worried Mick. Oh, if Prophet had gone quiet after a different kind of case—serial rapist, rampage killer, whatever—Mick would still be concerned and want to know what was wrong and all of that. Prophet would do the same for him; they were friends and that was how it worked. But if Prophet really wanted to be alone, Mick would be a lot more likely to accept it in that situation. Coop would too. Unfortunately given what their last case had entailed and knowing Prophet's temper…well, Mick didn't see the way that Prophet had shut down doing anything to relieve any tension, and they all knew that Prophet couldn't afford any kind of violent explosion when it came to this type of unsub. Not anywhere that anyone outside their team might see it, anyway. For all that the director seemed more accepting of him now, it would only take one real blow up for Prophet to be off the team and out of the FBI and maybe worse. They'd come close before, and it was just as well that pedophiles posing as readers for children's story time had more to worry about than an FBI agent who got a little rough.

Mick squared his shoulders and hit the doorbell. He needed to know what was going on before he could figure out what to do. Maybe Prophet was already beating the crap out of his punching bag and there was nothing to worry about. If that was the case, maybe Prophet would let him take a turn.

The ring of the bell was faintly audible through the door, but there were no other sounds from inside, and after a few minutes Mick hit the button again. When there was still no response he decided that enough was enough and dug out his key. This wasn't exactly the kind of 'just in case' circumstance that they'd figured might come up when he and Prophet had swapped spare keys, but it was certainly a circumstance.

"Prophet, it's me," he called as he let himself in. Music was playing, at least that much was familiar, and Mick checked the kitchen and living area. No sign of Prophet there, nor was he in his bedroom where the punching bag hung, and the bathroom was standing open and empty as well.

"Hello?" Another round of the flat didn't yield anything new, and he was starting to wonder if, unlikely as it seemed, Prophet had decided to take a walk or something when he noticed the bedroom window standing open. He stuck his head out. "Prophet?"

He wasn't sure what he'd expected to find, but Prophet sitting on the fire escape, legs hanging over the edge and crossed arms resting on the lower of the two railing bars as he stared out over the buildings across the alley, wasn't it. "Mate?" Mick asked.

No response. Prophet didn't even seem to have heard him.

Mick frowned for a minute and then climbed out beside Prophet, mirroring his position. "What are you doing out here?" It wasn't raining or anything like that, granted, and it wasn't as if Prophet had any issue with heights so there was no reason for him _not_ to be out here, but Mick could feel the chill in the air through his leather jacket and Prophet was only wearing a t-shirt. And even more than that, a perch up high like this—well, about as high as you could get in Prophet's building, anyway—was more along the lines of what Mick took comfort in. It wasn't a seat that he'd ever seen Prophet take before.

Prophet still didn't twitch.

"Proph?"

Nothing.

"Hey! Simms!" A pause. "Jon!" It was the first time that Mick could remember ever using Prophet's real name when speaking to him, but he wanted a reaction and not the one that sticking an elbow in him was likely to get.

Prophet's head swung towards him.

" _Finally_." He hadn't meant to say that out loud, but that didn't mean that it wasn't accurate. "What's going on with you?"

"Leave me alone."

Prophet's voice was rough, but at least he was looking at Mick, and Mick shook his head. "No. You're not acting much like you." And he wasn't about to walk away now that Prophet was talking. Of course, he hadn't been planning on walking away when Prophet _wasn't_ talking either, but that was hardly the point. "What's going on?" he repeated. "I mean, this was bad, really bad, and I figured there was going to be some yelling, but you've never shut us out before."

Prophet frowned.

"Gina was right next to you for the whole flight and you didn't even look at her."

That, at least, got a little bit of a reaction as Prophet dropped his eyes, but then he shook his head and returned his gaze to the skyline. "I'll apologize next time I see her. Right now it's better if I'm not around people."

Mick didn't bother asking 'why' but his "Since when are we 'people'?" was perfectly legitimate, and this time he did nudge Prophet lightly when Prophet didn't respond. "Talk to me."

Prophet shook his head.

"Please?" He waited a minute. "You're scaring me, buddy." It was low, and he knew it was low, but it was kind of true too.

Prophet sighed and ran a hand over his face, and Mick kept his arms hooked over the bar of the fire escape and waited. Prophet knew perfectly well what he was doing, he didn't doubt that. The question was whether it would work. He figured that his odds were good, if only because Prophet talked more with him about stuff, even the bad stuff, than anyone else on the team. Though, to be fair, that wasn't saying a lot.

"I had a brother," Prophet said after a few minutes of silence, as Mick was deciding whether or not to nudge him again. "I think you knew that."

"I saw a picture once," Mick said with a frown, not quite sure where the shift in conversation had come from. "A couple years ago." It had been back when they'd first started working together and he'd been poking around Prophet's shelves for whatever reason. There had only been a couple photos among the odds and ends—there still weren't that many now despite the fact that he'd added a few of the team—but one had been of Prophet at maybe twelve or thirteen, his arm around a blond boy with similar facial features a few years younger. Prophet hadn't said much about it at the time, and Mick hadn't known him well enough to ask, especially since he didn't talk about Jenna with relative strangers either. And he'd never seen the picture again after that. "He's dead, isn't he?" Mick asked after a minute. It wasn't exactly a question since Prophet had never made a secret of the fact that he didn't have any blood family left, but he suddenly had a bad feeling about where this might be going.

"Yeah."

Prophet picked absently at the peeling paint on the railing in front of him, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, and Mick kept his mouth shut and waited.

"His name was Ty. Tyler. He disappeared on his way to a friend's house when he was eleven."

"Shit."

"I wasn't with him," Prophet continued as if Mick hadn't spoken. "School had been out for a couple weeks by then, but there were still chores to do, and I had friends of my own to hang out with when that was done. Didn't even occur to me to offer to ride along that morning." A flicker of a smile crossed his face. "Truth tell, he'd probably have looked at me like I had three heads if I had offered. Danny lived all of three miles away, and he'd been riding way longer distances alone for years. But when he wasn't home for dinner Dad sent me to get him, and that's when I found out he'd never made it." A particularly large piece of paint peeled free and Prophet flung it away with an explosion of air that might have been a laugh if there had been any humor in it. "I didn't think anything about it at first. Well, I thought Dad was going to be pissed that supper had to wait even longer while I tracked him down, but it never even crossed my mind that something might be wrong. Obviously he'd run into another friend on the way to Danny's and decided to go off with them instead. I must have wasted a good hour riding around looking."

"Prophet..."

"Even when he wasn't—and hadn't been—at Kyle's or Terry's or the ball field or anywhere else I looked, I wasn't really worried. The town was small, but not small enough that it was hard for two kids on bikes to miss each other, and eventually I gave up and headed home. Figured he had to be home by then and I'd just missed him because he'd really be in deep shit if he was two hours late for supper. That's when I saw his bike lying in the weeds by the road maybe half a mile from our place. He wouldn't…he'd never have just left it lying there like that. Bikes were expensive and we didn't have a lot of money. I had to have ridden _right_ by it before and hadn't even noticed, and how the hell I missed a bright blue bike ten feet to my left I'll never know. That's when I freaked out a little, and then I got home and Dad freaked out a lot because obviously Ty still wasn't there, and we went to the sheriff and..." Prophet shook his head. "We found his body in the quarry four days later. What was left of it, at least."

Mick swore again quietly, but Prophet's eyes stayed on the skyline.

"That kind of thing, it just didn't happen back there. I mean, I know that's what everybody always says, but in all seriousness people still talked about a little girl who'd drowned in the duck pond five years before I was born. That was pretty much the worst thing that had happened to a child in anyone's memory. And then suddenly there was Ty." He shook his head again, harder this time. "I knew what 'rape' meant. Theoretically, at least; I was fifteen. And I grew up hunting so 'eviscerated' wasn't a new concept either although it would never have occurred to me to apply it to a human. The other stuff they talked about, though, the other things that had been done to him? I'd never even heard most of those words before. Took snitching the coroner's report off his desk to figure it out." Another breath of harsh non-laughter. "The coroner was really just the town doc, and I don't think he'd ever seen anything like it, but hey, he had diagrams. Pictures."

"Did they ever catch who did it?" Mick asked, trying not to dwell on that last. "That sounds like—" He cut himself off before he could finish with 'a signature' but evisceration and worse weren't usually part of a first kill. Nor did pedophiles typically start out killing their victims. But this was Prophet and Prophet's little brother not some case they were being called in to investigate and he didn't want to make things worse.

If Prophet noticed the chopped off sentence he gave no sign of it as he answered Mick's question. "Never had a clue. Everybody was scared and everybody was asking, but there was just nothing to go on. You know how hard it can be now, and back then—and back there—with no internet, no experts…." He shrugged. "People had probably _heard_ of serial killers, Manson and Zodiac and all of that was earlier, but California might as well have been China as far as we were concerned. And he was just one little boy."

"We go out on missing child cases," Mick objected.

"Again, now, but if the BAU even existed when I was a kid it was three guys in a basement who'd never heard of my hometown. And the sheriff wouldn't have thought to call on Feds anyway, it just…it wasn't the kind of thing you did. Fact is whoever killed Ty could have raped and murdered a dozen other little boys in a dozen other little towns like the one I grew up in and no one would ever have put it together." His hands tightened on the railing in front of him until his knuckles went white. "Dad was real messed up after it happened. We both were, Mom died not too long after Ty was born so was just the three of us, but he wrapped his truck around a tree going about fifty on Ty's twelfth birthday. They said it was an accident."

Prophet didn't add what he thought and Mick wasn't about to ask. "So that's why you left home at sixteen." It hadn't seemed unusual to Mick when Prophet had first mentioned it, sixteen wasn't uncommon for university or trade school back home and he'd been seventeen when he'd left for the army, but he'd since learned that eighteen was the standard in the US.

"Nothing to stay for. I understand better now, but back then I just had to be somewhere else."

"And California might as well have been China," Mick echoed.

"Yep."

There wasn't a damn thing Mick could say, and he shifted a little closer and threw and arm over Prophet's shoulders.

"I wasn't kidding when I said that I shouldn't be around other people," Prophet said, though he made no move to dislodge Mick's arm. "Everything is numb right now. Weird, and very numb. But when it's not, it's probably going to be bad."

Mick nodded. Prophet's reaction made a lot more sense now; they'd run into pedophiles before but not with this specific victim selection or with the kind of knife work that had been involved in the signature. That didn't mean that he was going to listen, though. "You're not getting rid of me that easy, mate. I've survived your temper before." Fortunately Prophet generally lashed out at things rather than people these days.

"Someone really ought to explain the concept of self-preservation to you."

"You won't hit me, and I'm not leaving you alone. Especially out here." A pause. "Why are you out here? This is more my kind of place, and it's not exactly a warm day."

"I don't know. Everything inside was just too close. I don't feel cold."

Mick wasn't about to trust Prophet's reactions to external stimulus right now, but Prophet continued before he could voice the thought.

"I promise that I'll stay home and not do anything stupid enough to bring trouble down on my head. Or anyone else's head, for that matter. Was going to do that anyway. Okay?"

It was a hint, but not one that Mick planned on taking. "That's nice."

"I'm going to have to physically pick you up and move you to get you out of here, aren't I?"

"You can try, but you'll lose." And he wouldn't try, Mick was sure of that much. On another day he might, but on another day he wouldn't care if Mick wanted to hang around.

Prophet sighed and released the bar, letting his arms dangle again.

Mick pulled his arm back and once again mirrored Prophet's position. "See, I knew you loved me."

"I will feed you to the squirrels."

"Circus not buying?"

"Beth says they won't take pain-in-the-ass kids."

"Squirrels are vegetarians." Mick hesitated, debating whether he should let the whole subject drop, but it was worth asking, and if he didn't do it now he probably never could. "Did you ever think of looking again? I mean, reopening your brother's case, going back through records, all of that?" He would help if Prophet wanted; the whole team would. They'd opened cold cases before, in fact all of them had a few things they worked on in between active investigations. Granted that they weren't usually _that_ cold or with that little to go on, but he was still willing to try.

"Once," Prophet said after a minute. "Back before you showed up, when I was splitting my time between academy crap and helping Coop with whatever old files he wanted to look at. What that bastard did to Ty..." Prophet let out a slow breath, opening and closing his hands. "But I didn't see anything good coming out of going down that rabbit hole then, and I still don't now. It'd be a different story if there was anything similar that was recent—recent meaning within the last twenty years—but there's not. That I did check." He shook himself slightly. "'Sides, even if there were other kills back then that might establish a pattern, because yeah, I'm damn sure there was a signature in all of that, if any records survived they're buried in old cardboard boxes in old forgotten storage rooms in little towns I've never heard of. There's not a computer search in the world that can find things that were never scanned in the first place. Hell, with Ty's I know _exactly_ where to look and I'd still probably have to make an in-person visit to get my hands on anything." A pause. "Ain't been back since I left."

Mick nodded. Of course Prophet had noticed the same thing he had. He would have put it together years ago. And if he said it was a bad idea to reopen the case…well, it wasn't fair or right or anything else, but that was nothing new, and if there was really nothing to find all they'd accomplish was bringing down attention from above that none of them wanted to deal with. "It's lousy, mate."

"Yeah."


	2. Digging

_Thanks to everyone who read and A ninny Mouse and two guests for reviewing._

 _This is clearly not going to be a two-shot, but we'll see how long it does get._

* * *

He was going to be sick. It was the first thought that Prophet had upon waking, and it wasn't until the dry heaves finally stopped—he should have eaten something when Mick had been making a mess of his cupboards in search of sandwich supplies earlier; it wouldn't have been any more pleasant but at least it might have hurt less—that he realized that it was dark out. He could see some light coming from the living room, but from the muted color and inconsistent flickers it was just something playing on the television.

There had been plenty of light when Mick had pulled him inside, but he didn't have any idea when that had been. He'd come in because Mick had wanted him to, not because he'd cared about the time or the temperature or anything else. The sight of the first little boy had been bad enough, but the second with his blond curls and freckles….

A flash of fire—pain and sorrow overwhelmed by _fury_ —swept through him and Prophet jerked around and slammed a hand against the wall. He had to lock his teeth as another violent roll of his stomach warred with a spike of pain shooting up his arm, but he welcomed the distraction. For the most part he took after his father in appearance, but Ty's features had been an echo of their mother's, and if that second boy hadn't been identical he'd still looked more like him than Prophet was comfortable with. Or maybe it was just the manner of his death drawing more parallels than there really were in his mind.

When the image faded he took a few deep breaths to settle himself again and then rinsed his mouth out in the sink. The pain in his hand redoubled as he gripped the faucet, and when he flipped on the light he winced at the mess he'd made of his knuckles. The palms and heels of his hands were badly bruised as well, and that hit against the wall a moment ago hadn't helped the situation. He gritted his teeth and then closed both hands slowly into fists before relaxing them again, hissing as more scabs split and bled. At least nothing felt broken. He'd gotten lucky.

He glanced back towards his room and the punching bag as a vague memory intruded. He really, really hoped that he wasn't remembering correctly and that Mick hadn't been holding the bag when he'd finally lost it, but he doubted it.

Damn it all, Mick _knew_ better than that. It was smarter than the sparring that Coop preferred, granted, and that was probably just as well for both of their sakes because Mick had taken a few turns against the bag as well, but all it would have taken was one miss, one wild swing….

Prophet turned back around, taking a few minutes to clean his hands and bandage the worst of the cuts, and then headed out into the main room.

"Mick?" He kept his voice down as he looked over the back of the couch and was glad that he had when he found Mick lying on his side fast asleep. The numbers glaring out at him from the box under the television read out barely half past ten, but he wasn't the only one who hadn't gotten much sleep on this case, and apparently the soccer game—Mick had an unholy knack for finding them on channels that Prophet didn't even know that he got—hadn't been worth staying up for. "Night, bud."

He wasn't at all hungry and under the circumstances probably wouldn't feel hungry again for a few days, but given that he hadn't eaten with Mick earlier or had any breakfast after the plane landed…actually now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure when he _had_ last eaten. He had a vague recollection of Gina shoving something into his hand yesterday, or maybe it had been Beth since she had a thing for weirdly-colored smoothies, but that was about it. Yeah, time for dinner. Or at least some crackers or something.

The bag of tortilla chips that had been living on top of the fridge was gone, but there were some saltines in the back of the pantry, and he grabbed the opened pack out of the box and a glass of water and went to sit on the floor in front of the couch. Soccer was not his favorite sport, although he was a lot more familiar with it now than he had been a few years ago, and he rescued the remote from Mick's loose grip—even in the low light his knuckles didn't look too much better than Prophet's—and began to flip. There had to be a baseball game on somewhere.

As it turned out there wasn't, but an old not-actually-supposed-to-be-funny horror flick was good enough, and he leaned back against the couch and began to eat through his pack of crackers. He was pretty sure they were stale. He was also pretty sure that he didn't care.

"Snacks."

The word actually followed on the heels of a hand reaching over Prophet's shoulder and snatching away the cracker halfway to his mouth, and Prophet bit off a startled curse and twisted around to glare at Mick even as he ordered his heart to get back into his chest.

"Sorry," Mick said with a grin, making short work of the cracker. And then grimacing. "Nasty. You need to buy new snacks, mate."

"A, no you're not, and B, there used to be chips but they've mysteriously disappeared."

"You act like that's my fault."

"It usually is."

Mick rolled onto his back, and Prophet heard his shoulders pop as he stretched. "What happened to my football game, anyway?"

"Don't remember seeing any football, but during the soccer game one of the players stubbed his toe and the screaming was getting on my nerves. Do they all take drama classes before they're allowed to step onto the field?"

"Football involves people using their feet," Mick said with exaggerated patience. "See how that makes sense? What you call football is a bunch of guys dressing up in a hundred pounds of padding to play rugby."

"You're going there again, huh?"

Mick rolled back onto his side and reached out to steal another cracker. "Seriously, mate, these are disgusting."

"Then stop eating them."

"You first."

Prophet had eaten far worse than stale crackers in his lifetime and knew Mick had too—different circumstances, maybe, but they both knew that there were times when you ate what was available—but there wasn't much point in bringing that up. Especially since this wasn't one of those circumstances. "All right, all right. You want something else? Spaghetti?" A real meal wouldn't hurt either of them even if they weren't actually hungry, and that was about the fastest thing he had.

"I like spaghetti," Mick agreed.

Or regardless of whether he was actually hungry, apparently. "Come on."

Mick followed him into the kitchen, snagging the pack of crackers and tossing in the trash before Prophet could put it back in the pantry. Prophet started to object, but Mick's "Shite, mate, your hands are a mess," when he turned the lights on cut off the words before he could voice them.

"Yeah, I noticed. I also notice that yours don't look too much better. There are more bandages in the bathroom if you want."

"Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Meatballs first, though." Mick rescued them from the freezer and put them in the microwave to thaw and then headed for the bathroom.

Prophet put the water on to boil and followed. "Need a hand?"

Mick looked up and grimaced. "Wouldn't argue. Fingers are a pain."

"Especially when they're on the dominant hand." As long as they were in here, he was going to get Mick to help with a couple more of his. "You know it was damn stupid to be holding that punching bag, don't you?" Prophet asked as they worked.

"I don't see it that way."

"Yeah, well, you need to have your head examined."

"Don't see it that way either."

They were never going to agree, and Prophet knew it. He'd explained to Mick a time or two before that they didn't put people in prison for creative use of invectives—you'd think Mick would know that by now, but sometimes Prophet wondered—and Mick knew him well enough to know that on the worst days his temper still scared _him_ , but he didn't care. Or he didn't believe that Prophet would ever lash out at him which wasn't exactly something that Prophet wanted to prove him wrong about, but…. "I don't like you in front of me when I'm like that," Prophet said. "You know that."

"I know you worry too much." For a minute it looked like Mick was going to say something else, but then he shook his head. "And you're going to need more tape."

Prophet glared and then gave it up. For now, at least. "There's more in my dresser."

* * *

Prophet checked his watch and then shifted the bag of Chinese and hit the bell. Good, still plenty of time to get settled in before the game despite the hold up in the takeout line.

The door opened a moment later, and Mick grinned and waved him in. "You got the good noodles this time, right?"

"Yes, I got the good noodles this time," Prophet said with a roll of his eyes, pushing past towards the kitchen. "If you don't stop bringing that up I'm going to keep all the fortune cookies for myself."

"Try it; I've got the beer."

That was actually a good defense. Prophet dropped the takeout bag on the counter and grabbed a plate. "Anyone else coming over? I know Gina said she was having dinner with her sister." And was as conflicted as ever about it, although she was definitely less hesitant about those dinners when her mother wasn't also planning to attend. He'd picked up enough food for all of them, but it wasn't like he or Mick objected to leftovers.

"Nah. Coop said something about an art gallery opening, and Beth asked where I got the impression that she was at all interested in basketball."

Prophet grinned and dished himself a few extra pieces of chicken. "Sounds about right."

"Kind of needed to talk to you anyway."

His tone was enough to make Prophet pause. "I'm always here if you want to talk, you know that. What's up?"

"You might kick my arse for it."

He still wasn't holding a plate, and Prophet frowned and put his down. "Managed to keep myself from doing that so far, despite all temptation and stolen pens. What's so different about whatever this is?"

Mick opened his mouth to answer and then stopped himself and reached for a plate. "Let's eat first."

"That's not real comforting, you know." The last couple weeks had been reasonably quiet, enough so to let them all regain some equilibrium, and Prophet had no idea what might be making Mick look worried now. Prophet and Gina had had their heads together over a pair of serial rapist profiles for most of it—one in Anchorage and one in Austin, but with enough similarities between them that they could handle both remotely at the same time especially after Coop had joined them—but as far as he knew Mick's focus had been with Beth on a geological profile of a stalker up in the Olympic Mountains. And before that he'd been getting some courtroom experience, going with Coop up to Boston when Coop had been called to testify in a spree killer case. Neither of those was something that was likely to have shaken him, and why he thought Prophet might be upset Prophet didn't even have a guess. Prophet hadn't even had a serious nightmare in almost a week. "Come on, spit it out."

"I asked Garcia to do some digging."

"We're always asking her to dig. I'd nominate her for sainthood if I didn't know that she prefers gift baskets."

"I asked her to dig for cases that matched the signature in your brother's."

Prophet was suddenly very glad that he'd put the plate down. "Damn it, Mick."

"Told you that you were going to be angry." He shook his head. "I know I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry, but with what you told me it seemed like there had to be something. And if I asked you would have said no."

He already had said no as he recalled, or at least he'd said something that should have been interpreted as such, and Prophet hooked his arms over his chest. "As tempting as it is to knock a couple teeth in, I'm assuming you're telling me this for a reason." It was entirely possible that Mick's entire reasoning was that he didn't want Prophet finding out on his own—Garcia was a great tech analyst but not always the best at keeping secrets—but even so Prophet wanted to hear it.

"She found something. Seven somethings."

For a moment Prophet couldn't even process what he'd heard, and when he had he still couldn't believe it. "You're shitting me. I looked; there was nothing."

"You said nothing in the last twenty years. I looked earlier." Mick shrugged slightly. "There's been a big push to bring rural police precincts into the 21st century. Special grants for technology, training, all of that."

"I know that," Prophet snapped, suddenly borderline furious, and his arms snapped back to his sides. "They've been trying for years. Make a point."

"One of the requirements for one of the latest grants was that a certain percentage of records had to be computerized by the end of last year. Apparently it was enough money that a bunch of places actually did the work."

The surge of anger ran out again as quickly as it had come. "Christ."

"Search parameters were boys ages eight to sixteen killed in rural areas in the southeastern part of the country between 1975 and 1990." He met Prophet's eyes and then looked away. "But that turned up too many records so I had her filter on cases where the bodies had evidence of mutilation with an edged weapon."

"And she found seven of them?" He heard his voice crack on the last word and clenched his hands hard enough that his nails bit into his palms. He'd told himself that it was better that he hadn't found anything when he'd looked—he'd known that there had to be others somewhere, but if he couldn't find them he couldn't do anything—but the fact that he had confirmation now….

"Almost twice that, but a couple had evidence of severe, ongoing physical abuse before their deaths, one died in a very twisted family annihilator situation, that kind of thing. There were seven that matched your brother's." He met Prophet's eyes again. "All of them are unsolved. A couple files list suspects, in one or two towns they even made an arrest, but nothing came of any of it. As far as I could tell none of them seemed to involve any actual evidence."

"Every town has a couple scapegraces." It wouldn't have been out of character for some town n'er-do-well to have been arrested, tried, and even convicted even with no evidence given the kind of fear that followed a killing like Ty's. "Where are the files? On your computer?" A pause as his stomach dropped. " _Don't_ tell me at the office." If they were at the office he was going to have to go there, and right now he was damn sure that he didn't have any business driving. Coop tended more towards sharp comments than real dressing downs, but Prophet had gotten a couple of them after their last case—specifically after he'd driven off unable to even focus on his own teammates after their last case—and he wasn't interested in receiving any more.

"I printed them out. They're in my bag." Mick looked at the food on the counter again and then shook his head. "Come on."

Prophet sank down on the couch and accepted a stack of folders from Mick. It was hard as hell to open the first one, but when he did he had to fight to keep his breathing even. He didn't know the boy in the picture, but that didn't make it any better. The knife work from their last case had been enough to give him nightmares, this….

"Mate?" Mick asked quietly.

Prophet closed his eyes and made himself focus. This boy was a little older than Ty had been, just barely a teenager, and the cuts were more extensive than he remembered. The pattern was damningly similar, though.

"It looks like he was working his way up this line of mountains," Mick said slowly, producing a map with multiple dots on it.

"The ridge," Prophet found himself correcting, surprised at how even his voice was.

"What?"

"We called it the ridge. All the locals did."

"Oh. Okay. Well, the oldest killings are from down in this area, and then they start to work their way north, and then at the end of the ridge he starts south again. Only two going that direction, though, and then it just stops."

Mick tapped two dots lightly, the last ones in the series from the dates next to them, and then passed the map to Prophet.

"Did he take up somewhere else?" Prophet asked.

"It doesn't look like it. I asked Garcia to do a nationwide search and widened the date range up through 2000 just in case but it didn't turn up anything similar. And I know you searched after that. Plus those records would have gone straight into the computers anyway."

Prophet traced the line of dots lightly and then frowned and did a quick count of the files in front of him. "Where's Ty's?"

"What?"

"Ty's file."

Mick looked away. "There isn't one."

"You've got Cartersville marked, Mick, and I know damn well I never told you where I grew up. I doubt even Coop knows since we didn't have a hospital of our own and my birth certificate will tell you that I'm from over in Watertown. With eight dots and seven files here it's not hard to figure which one you'd keep back."

"Proph, you don't need to see—"

"Now, Mick. I won't much like myself afterwards, but I will hit you if you don't hand it over."

Mick sighed and pulled another folder out of his bag. "Please, mate."

"I've seen it before."

"That isn't going to make it better."

He was right, but Prophet wasn't going to let that stop him. He'd been stubborn enough at fifteen to look even when he hadn't really understood what he was seeing; he was stubborn enough now to do so again when he did. He braced himself and flipped the folder open. It was even worse than the first since he _knew_ the eyes looking up at him from that first grainy photo—they matched the ones he saw every day when he looked in the mirror—and the curly blond hair and freckles were just like he remembered, but after a few minutes he closed his eyes and turned the photos over, making himself focus on the diagrams instead. He hadn't misremembered; it was bad but there were definitely fewer cuts than the first he'd opened. Not nearly enough fewer, but it was an indication of something. "He was still evolving, wasn't he?" Pheard himself ask.

"It looks like it," Mick agreed. "I've checked all of them, and it gets more extensive the further north you go. And then more when he started coming back down too. He had his base pattern down early, the killing stroke for sure, but I think he was still working up to his fantasy."

Prophet swallowed bile. "Do the others know about this?"

"Coop, does. Or at least he knows what I asked Garcia to look into. I told him when we were up in Boston. I don't think Gina or Beth do, but they'll help. If you want to tell them." A pause. "Like I said, I know I should have asked, but you would have said no, and you know how well I handle being told to drop something."

He didn't handle it; the kid was like a damn pitbull when it came to things like that. Most of the time Prophet appreciated that quality. "God." Prophet rubbed his forehead.

"There's no reason we can't, Proph. We've all got our cold cases."

"And we have active cases and victims we might still be able to save."

Mick's expression couldn't have said 'don't be an idiot' any more clearly than if he'd actually said the words, and it wasn't like he didn't have a point. Active cases had priority, sure, but cold cases were what they worked in their downtime, and adding one more wouldn't make much of a difference.

"Do you _want_ to drop it?" Mick asked quietly.

Prophet closed his eyes and then shut Ty's folder carefully. "I'll talk to Coop. And maybe Gina and Beth. But not until after I've looked through the rest of these." A pause. "Keep your mouth shut until then, all right?"

"That I can do."

"And I'm keeping the fortune cookies."

"Well, I'm sure as hell not sharing the beer tonight."


	3. Contacts

_Thanks to everyone who read and to R.C. Wulfe, bindsy, and a guest for reviewing. Slowly getting back to writing, but life is hectic._

* * *

"Okay, what the hell is going on with Prophet?" Gina demanded.

"What? Nothing. I don't know. What do you mean?" Mick tore his eyes away from Coop's closed door to look over at her, well aware of exactly how absurd that had sounded, and it was no surprise that she snorted and came to lean against the side of his desk.

"I mean, he's been practically a zombie this whole week. He actually forgot—twice—that we've moved on from the serial rapists to an HSK. Once while we were talking to the California state highway patrol officer who found the last body. I'd be worried about a head injury if we'd done more than consult lately, although I guess it's possible that he lost a sparring match with Coop when I wasn't looking."

"I'm starting to wonder if there have been a rash of lost sparring matches recently," Beth said from her perch on the windowsill, focusing on Mick. "Or some sort of shared brain infection, maybe, since you haven't given Prophet one word of crap about anything for days. About as long as he's been impersonating a zombie, in fact. It's approaching terrifying."

Beth would keep track of something like that. Some days he hated working with profilers. "You don't spar with Coop," he said in a desperate—and completely futile, and he knew it—attempt to get their attention off him. "Maybe you'd win."

She rolled her eyes. "The only way in which I win is if he hurts himself trying to avoid hurting me which is why I will never spar with him. Returning to the subject at hand?"

"Like why Prophet and Coop have been shut up in that office for like an hour now," Gina injected.

"Okay, how is that on me?" Mick asked.

Gina crossed her arms over her chest. "Lack of other options."

"Not to mention that you've turned about two pages in that report since they went in," Beth said, hopping down off the windowsill to join them. "And since you wrote it, I can't imagine that it's that fascinating."

"Does it have anything to do with that last hell case of ours?" Gina asked.

In particular, some days he hated working with profilers as good as his teammates. "What makes you think I know?"

"You're his best friend," Beth said. "What I can't think of is anything he'd talk to Sam about before you."

Gina nodded. "Something obviously happened, and I'm very sure that it doesn't involve the HSK profile he _hasn't_ been looking at for the California state patrol. I'm running out of ways to cover for him."

"I don't…it's not my place," Mick finally said.

That got him two distinctly unimpressed stares, and he was trying to come up with an excuse to leave the office—too late for lunch, too early for dinner, no paperwork requiring his immediate attention, damn it—when the door to Coop's office finally opened and he and Prophet stepped out.

"Beth, would you mind giving me a hand with something?" Coop asked, not commenting on their current positions despite the fact that there was no way that it looked like anything other than the interrogation it was.

"Sure." Beth shot Mick another look but didn't say anything else to either him or Prophet as she followed Coop back into the office.

"What's going on, mate?" Mick asked Prophet as the door shut again and Prophet made his way slowly back to his own desk.

For a minute Prophet didn't respond and Mick was afraid that they were going to have a reprise leading back to Prophet's fire escape, but then Prophet sank into his chair and let out a slow sigh. "He agrees that we can reopen the case, but under the circumstances he thinks we have to tell the director."

Mick felt his lip curl. He didn't like the way that the director had treated Prophet when they'd first joined the bureau, and even if it seemed like the man had finally gotten his head out of his arse there was no way that this particular cold case wouldn't re-raise some of those old doubts.

"It's not…Coop's right about the personal connection side," Prophet said with a shrug that was obviously forced, his focus on the far wall rather than Mick. "But for what it's worth, he's got some idea that he and Beth between them can bury it in other paperwork. Or that they can use the fact that we tend to be right more often than the brass, and Beth, at least, is not shy about rubbing noses in it, to put the attention on the case rather than…well, me."

"What's going on, Prophet?" Gina interrupted before Mick could figure out how to voice his concern. "Personal connection to what? You've been really quiet these past couple days. And Mick's been nice about it which, Beth is right, is just scary."

Prophet dropped his head, shifting his focus from the wall to his desk for a minute, and then he shook himself and moved from his chair to sit on the edge of said desk, finally making eye contact with both of them. "Coop will fill Beth in, but the short version is that my little brother was kidnapped and murdered when we were kids. He died a lot like those boys a few weeks back."

"Shit," Gina said.

"Yeah. Anyway, someone couldn't keep his nose out of things—"

"I love you too, mate."

"—and it turns out that some records got computerized recently proving that he wasn't the only one. Ty, I mean, not Mick being a pain in the ass. The case was never solved, they never even had a suspect, but with a string of murders with the same signature over the course of several years…. "

"We're reopening it, then?" Gina asked.

Prophet made an open-handed gesture. "Unless we get shut down."

Her jaw tightened, and she crossed the space between the desks to give Prophet a hug. "Of course we're reopening it."

"Thanks," he said quietly, hugging her back.

"Do you have the files?" she asked as he released her.

"Hardcopies. Mick's got the electronic versions."

"You've read them all?" She looked over at Mick. "Both of you?"

"Yeah," Prophet said as Mick nodded. "The progression is pretty obvious, and I'm afraid it's going to come down to where he started and where—and why—he stopped to have any chance of figuring out who it was. If we even can. We're talking something that happened almost thirty years ago now."

"We won't know until we try. Send them my way and I'll add another set of eyes." She shook her head. "That HSK isn't due to strike again for another month at least, and it's not like we've found any promising leads."

He winced. "Not like I've been any help. Sorry about that."

"You've had other things on your mind."

Mick didn't really appreciate the scowl aimed in his direction, but he didn't bother arguing. It wasn't like she or anyone else on the team would actually have wanted him to spill Prophet's secrets without his permission.

Beth and Coop came out of the office while Mick was starting to plot out the path of the kills on a larger scale map than he could carry in his bag, and all three of them looked over.

"Message sent?" Prophet asked.

"Message sent," Coop agreed. "We'll see what happens."

Beth was by far the least tactile person on the team, but even she patted Prophet's arm as he caught them up on what had been started—not much—and Coop gripped his shoulder lightly.

"Gina and I will start from the first abduction," Coop said. "Beth, Mick, you take the last, and we'll work in from there. Prophet, have you got updated phone numbers for the local police precincts?"

"A couple," Prophet said. "Haven't actually picked up the phone." Even as he said the words he did just that, though, pulling his cell out of his pocket and tapping the screen.

"Do you want to use the office?" Coop offered.

"Please."

Mick shifted to the side to show Beth the map he was working on, and then she grabbed the case files and started to page through them while he finished up. Attempted to finish up. He was back to staring at Coop's door again.

"He'll be fine," Beth said quietly. "Better if we can solve this."

" _Profilers_ ," Mick muttered.

* * *

"So you think the sheriff of your old hometown is really your brother's best friend?" Mick asked, digging around—fruitlessly, thus far—in Prophet's cupboards. "Are you sure? I mean, Dan Reeves can't be that uncommon a name, and wouldn't he be kind of young for the position?"

"I'm pretty sure it's him. I mean, she sent his driver's license photo, and he looks a lot like I remember his dad looking," Prophet said. "Besides, he's got half a dozen years on you, and we're talking about a small town in the middle of nowhere. Odds are that he splits most of his attention between the two drunks and three dumb kids with too much time on their hands." There was a long pause. "What are you doing, anyway? You're look like you're about to tunnel through to Mrs. Hanson's place. And not that you're not always welcome, but why the hell are you doing it now?"

Mick pulled his head out of the cabinet. "Where's the tea?"

"What? I don't know. You ate it all."

"You don't eat tea."

"Then you drank it all, smartass. Or maybe Beth did the last time we all did a movie marathon."

Mick sighed and shut the cabinet. "Blaming Beth. Definitely blaming Beth."

Prophet shook his head and grabbed a second mug out of the cabinet. "Just drink some coffee like a normal person and explain to me why we're having this conversation at eight in the morning on a Sunday. You hate mornings."

"Yes, but for some twisted reason you enjoy them, and I wanted to talk to you before you called anybody." He wanted to be with Prophet before he called anybody.

"Why would I call someone at—once again—eight in the morning on a Sunday?"

"Because that email from Garcia about Sheriff Reeves came in last night, and you won't be able to wait until tomorrow to call him. If Garcia had gotten us the information one minute before ten pm, you'd have _already_ called him." He accepted the cup from Prophet and headed for the refrigerator and the milk. "Since I won't be able to stop you from calling, I can at least make sure that it happens at a reasonable hour and you're not alone when you do it. Also, I like pancakes."

"At what point did pancakes become a part of this conversation?"

Mick stared at him pointedly.

Prophet grabbed the canister of flour off the top of the microwave. "Fine, as long as you're in there, pass me a couple eggs. And remind me again why I like you."

It was nine-thirty before Prophet's fingers began to twitch, and Mick gave in and began collecting the plates. That had gone better than he'd hoped, really…he'd figured nine at the absolute latest before Prophet was reaching for his phone. "Do you want me to listen in?" he asked.

Prophet started to shake his head and then stopped and nodded. "Yeah, that'd be good."

Mick very much hoped that this Sheriff Reeves was working today because Prophet had the guy's cell phone number too and there was zero chance that he wouldn't use it. He understood why Coop had Prophet making the initial contacts, but he really wasn't sure that this one was a great idea.

Too late to argue the point now, though, as Prophet punched in the number and then set the phone on the table between them.

"Cartersville Police Department," a woman's voice said a moment later.

"Hello, my name is Agent Simms, with the FBI," Prophet said. "You're on speaker with myself and Agent Rawson. Could we speak to Sheriff Reeves, please?"

"The FBI?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"One moment, please, I'm not sure if he's in today or not."

"Of course."

They were on hold for considerably longer than a moment, and Mick wondered idly if they'd have gotten a better response if they'd said that they were alien invaders. That was sometimes the case when it came to the real little towns. Normally Prophet would have enjoyed the joke as well, but he was tensing more and more as the seconds passed, and Mick had a feeling that he wouldn't even hear it.

Prophet was just starting to tap his fingers against the tabletop when there was the click of another phone connecting, and then, "Sheriff Reeves, to whom and I speaking, please?"

"Danny?" Prophet asked.

"Excuse me? Who is this?"

"I…it's Jon. Simms. Ty's brother."

"What?"

Prophet closed his eyes. "You're Danny Reeves, right? Born in Cartersville just at the end of Sparrow Road? My brother, my dad, and I lived a couple miles from your place."

There was a long silence, and then, "You're dead. I mean, we thought you were dead. Everyone thinks you're dead. After your dad—I mean—how are you not dead?" A pause, then considerably more suspiciously, "How do I even know you're Jon? Everyone knows where my parents live."

Which said as much as anything about how small the town Prophet was from was.

"I taught you and Ty to ride bikes together when you were five," Prophet said. "Or I tried, anyway, Ty figured it out, but you sucked and I got to carry you back and forth to kindergarten on my handlebars for like six months before you managed to keep the damn thing upright for more than ten feet at a stretch."

"That's not fair, I was shorter than Ty and my bike was bigger." There was a sigh. "Jesus, Jon, everyone thought—thinks—you're dead."

Prophet snorted. "Yeah, I got that. Although I doubt more than a dozen people besides you even remember me."

At least not as anything more than a murdered kid's older brother, Mick added silently.

Prophet closed his eyes again for a minute and then shook himself. "I have some questions for you about Ty, Danny. Uh, we have some questions for you."

"Hello," Mick said, taking that as his cue. "I'm Mick Rawson, also with the FBI."

"Dan Reeves." A beat of silence, and then. "Seriously, Jon, you work for the FBI? And you're really asking about Ty? _Now?_ "

"Yeah," Prophet said. "Older stuff is getting into the nationwide databases, and it turns out that he wasn't the only one to die like that. Not by a long shot."

"Christ."

"Yeah."


End file.
